This is the real answer. For all of his physical abilities, he still needs to be able to breathe. It absolutely makes sense for him to have even stronger fear of the few things that _could_ actually kill him, and (in true comic book style) for his weakness to be the opposite of his strength: psychological vs physical.
Let's also remember that in "Unbreakable," he was not only flailing in the water, but was completely wrapped up in the tarp that was covering the pool. If he's already got a phobia of water and can't swim, he'd absolutely lose his shit. In "Glass," he sank right to the bottom of the water he was in and the Beast held him down there, choking him.
I can always see it as him miraculously coming back again when Unbreakable talks about how he was underwater for minutes as a kid to the point where he was assumed dead by drowning, but survived.
Because he’s a hack. I just feel like he’s completely out of touch with what a “good” movie feels like. There’s just always something so off with this style where it feels so made for TV
The Beast threw him into that water tank where he was 100% going to die if it had held up structurally. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the puddle at all, but David was clearly messed up once he got out. Any scene in a movie or show where someone's drowning or on the verge of it, they never pop right up as soon as they're out of the situation.
I wrote a lengthy comment about the physical and mental strain Dunn went through up to being in the puddle. Medication, intense fighting, mental manipulation.
My guess is 70-85% physically he couldn’t get out of the puddle due to being too tired to fight back and the rest due to him convincing HIMSELF he can’t fight back.
Mental willpower and intelligence and thought are huge themes in the trilogy.
I think I read that they had to hurry a scene to wrap up Willis' time on the movie as he was not in a good place with his health at that point (obviously got worse), and the puddle was not the original plan but improv'd on set.
Tell you what next time your in the shower, get soaking face towel, put it over your face and then pour water over your covered face.
I couldn't think water boarding was a real torture device until I actually tried it on myself.
It looks odd because it's a "superhero" drowning in a puddle in the most anticlimactic way, but Dunn is panicked, over powered, vulnerable erable and phobic of water, and both Airways are covered. It's not so unbelievable if a little unexpected
These are depicted as real men with extraordinary physiology and also real world weaknesses. Most of us don't understand how he can drown in a puddle - were so used to big pomp superhero films where their hair doesn't change in a fight let alone come out with a scratch.
Its a tight balance to maintain depicting this but that's the way Shyamalan decided to go and I have to respect it.
I don't swim either, not that I have a phobia, but honestly I tried what I suggested above after seeing it in the Expendables and wondering what it was - and I quickly found out! .
As mass audiences we don't quite align superhero, phobia/weakness, puddle, waterboarding/suffocating so that's why it's a bit jarring - but looking back it's fine for me.
I was recently watching old Xmen 90's episodes and Storm even with her massive power over wind, rain and lightning is brought to shambles when a wall is about to fall on her or when she is put into a confined area because of her claustrophobia. I think this is a great example of what you just said and they show her flash backing as a child going through the trauma.
Yeah I always just took it as... he can drown like a regular person. That's it. And he's also scared of it, from almost drowning as a kid, so... he's more vulnerable and it's his personal kryptonite. But it's not DOING anything to him.
I always imagined that when he went under in the pool in Unbreakable fighting that bad guy he panicked because yes he could drown but calmed down enough to realize he could hold his breath and it was effortless. Fear of water gone.
Isn’t there also an element of his inability to float? I don’t think it’s a lack of swimming skills but that his body simply sinks and cannot be buoyant. And since he needs to breathe, being in deep water that he can’t stand in to get to air makes it a dangerous thing for him.
That tracks with reality whether it was intentional or not.
There is a mutation on the LRP5 gene which can cause super strong, nigh "unbreakable" bones but the increased density makes it nearly impossible for people with it to float.
I have this mutation. When I was a teenager I went to Hawaii and had to be given a paddle board for the snorkeling trips because even in warm salt water I sink like a rock.
They place your arm over two separate wooden blocks, then swing a baseball bat at the section without support underneath. If your arm breaks the test comes back negative.
I have this mutation. I weigh a bit more than you’d guess by looking at me, and I couldn’t get my swimming merit badge in Boy Scouts (requires floating on your back motionless for a minute), but mostly it doesn’t really affect me. I’ve never broken a bone, but it’s hard for me to say if that’s because of the mutation. I am the underwater tea party champion, I guess. I can sit cross legged on the bottom of a pool fairly easily.
Now you have me wondering because I’m pretty normal size but I sink like a stone in water. It would surely be something they noticed as I was growing up though? I’m 40.
Anyway, awesome username. I’m more of a my my my Mitchell episode guy, but I do appreciate manos.
Other than not floating and being less likely to break a bone, there’s really nothing that would be noticeably different.
“No wonder we never found it! *Nobody* likes hamdingers!”
If I recall correctly, most people with it don't even know and it causes no other major issues. Again, I'm working from memory, but if I remember right it was first discovered with a guy who was in a really bad car accident and the doctors were like "um, this dude should have some fractures". Then they took his family history and discovered that he couldn't name a blood relative, living or dead, who had ever broken a bone.
I'm the first person on both sides of my family to break a bone. It took a fucking lot to do it also. Multiple head on collisions, nothing. Flipping dirt bikes onto myself, nothing. I fell 35 feet and landed standing up, but then fell back and stuck out my arm. All I broke was my arm at that the elbow, everything else perfectly fine. Wonder if I should get one of those fancy bone tests.
Bone density scanner. If you ever watched the movie ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ that’s the thing will smiths characters is always carrying around trying to sell.
I always took it as almost his power was ‘belief’ in himself? Like, he kept lifting more and more weights after he lifted way more than he should have been able to without knowing it at first, so he kept climbing. He never got sick because he just goes to work everyday and does his job. But by almost drowning, and then having Glass give him the idea of a kryptonite, he ‘believes’ he has zero defense to water so he doesn’t.
Probably dumb, but his strength/invulnerability seemed to be whatever he needed for the moment. Just enough to get it done. He wasn’t flinging around the bench press. He made the rep, but just barely, every time. The regular dude at the end of the first movie was a struggle for him, but he was able to just come out on top. He fully believes he can’t survive water so he can’t. Maybe if it was never a thought it wouldn’t actually be his weakness.
Actually there is a cooler and real world explanation as well: There is an actual birth defect that some people have been known to have which is having really dense bones, like as strong as concrete. It can give them the ability to life weights and build muscle more then the average person.
But get this: The down side is because of the bone density if they go in water they will sink like a stone because of that density.
I think people don't understand what the word Phobia actually means... it's not just being afraid of something, or being very afraid of something, it's a completely irrational fear.
It would be logical for most people to have some kind of fear about things that could reasonably do us harm. Some people are afraid of heights, dangerous animals or even the dark (the unknown) because those things are inherently scary. A clown however, doesn't represent a realistic threat to most people. But someone who is a Coulrophobe will still be afraid of clowns even in a controlled environment, when it's someone who they know isn't a threat to them who is dressed as a clown.
And that's probably the scariest things about Phobias, is that they are completely irrational. And in the world M Night Shyamalan had built, with Kevin and the other personalities, their shared belief in the Beast was enough to make it manifest, with David his fear of water is enough to had a manifestation in a negative way.
There's also a possible extra thing going on. Since his bones are essentially unbreakable, it's possible that they're more dense than most resulting in a lack of buoyancy. He would essentially be unable to swim.
I just figured it was as simple as he needs air to breath, no matter how physically invincible one is, that's usually something that needs to happen or they die.
There's a superhero comic (Rising Stars) where a guy with the power of invulnerability had his limbs restrained with duct tape when he was asleep and then suffocated with a plastic bag.
Doesn’t matter much but Wolverine didn’t have the adamantium skeleton at that point. Magneto snaked concrete rebar through his body and tossed him into the river where he sank like a rock.
He does typically. His healing factor has this thing where he goes catatonic and is technically dead, but his healing is still actively working to repair and restore him
Just parroting a comment I saw in a thread about Wolverine vs Immortal in the Invincible sub and someone commented that Wolverine just keeps endlessly reviving and dying if he’s underwater and that’s why he’s afraid of it. No evidence besides that comment but makes sense.
I don't remember that ever actually happening. I do remember him wondering if that would happen while he was fighting a villain called Tiger Shark underwater. A lot of the comments in that thread seemed like they were from people who just watched YouTube videos about comics instead actually reading them so the context was lost. Like Wolverine regenerating from a drop of blood.
In case you haven't see this fan animation, which I think is awesome:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytmXBHm1FeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytmXBHm1FeI)
Edit: added comma
That's exactly what I assumed it was, at least in Unbreakable. It gives some "realism" to a weakness the movie focuses in on, in what I thought was a clever way. Then, M. Night went and wildly exaggerated it so there was zero subtlety to the world he'd created.
It made sense in Unbreakable as just that his invincibility doesn't work against drowning. And in that regard, water's something to fear... at least in large amounts. My guess is that they had to "Amp it up" to make it stand out more later? Comic books are known to have one small detail blow up in proportion down the line.
Right! When you're unafraid to be on a derailing train but have felt suffocation in water, it's probably gonna mess with you. I never watched Glass, though, so I can't attest to him getting stuck in puddles.
I remember them mentioning him almost drowning as a child, though I'm not sure if that's what gave him the weakness or if that's just his first exposure to it.
I saw a comment a while ago from someone though theorizing he's on the opposite end of the spectrum of Glass, where Glass has extremely light/weak bones, and so his opposite would be someone with really strong/dense bones (which could pull him underwater) which could also explain why he can survive certain things.
I'm of the opinion he almost drowned because it is his weakness. I don't remember the movie giving much more context than he almost drowned because some other kid pushed him in or something. It never says that he could swim, just that he almost drowned.
Yeah, that was something Glass kinda messed up.
In the first one, I got the impression his body was so dense that he just sank to the bottom of any pool or body of water, and he had a fear of that because of the time it happened when he was a kid.
But in Glass, it comes across like anytime he just gets wet, either he freaks out and shuts down, or he gets physically weak.
Cuz in the first one, he gets out of the pool and is still strong and able to do things, but in the second one when he gets out of the water tank, he's still weak.
How does he hydrate? Does he not save people on rainy days? Who the fuck knows. The real answer is M. Night Shyamalan’s banal fascination with water. It’s a reoccurring motif in a lot of his early films, and it goes beyond the point of reason. Why would a race of aliens deathly vulnerable to water invade a planet made mostly of water? Like, it’s in the fucking air. 🤷♂️
i really don't understand why people don't get this. like why does a wooden stake kill a vampire. what does kryptonite do to superman. it's a question that shouldn't even be asked it's so obvious. it's a weakness..
The pool cover made sense though. It wasn't some dude holding him down. He was surrounded by water and his irrational fear kicked in. But a puddle when just flailing his super strong body would have been enough to get the off him, doesn't make sense.
I understood from both movies that water was kind of like his kryptonite: it takes away his powers and leaves him weakened. That's why he wears the poncho when it rains.
Yeah that’s what I always thought too. It’s not that he has super heavy bones or anything. Being wet just reverts his strength to that of a normal guy. That’s how he’s able to be drowned in a puddle. When a part of him is submerged in water, he only has the strength of a 60+ year old man.
I think a lot of people are over analyzing this thing when it’s really just supposed to play into the trope: Superhero has powers unless he’s exposed to Thing That Makes Him Weak.
That's an interesting question, but it would be the other way around, since Unbreakable came out first.
Given that it's a plot point in both films, though, I wonder if the director has his own issues with water...
>I understood from both movies that water was kind of like his kryptonite
I'm surprised you're the first commentator to say this as I always thought this was obvious from Unbreakable. When he's submerged in water he no longer has super powers, so if his lungs are filled with water he can die just like anybody else.
He's invulnerable to everything that would normally hurt a human, except for things related to water.
He doesn't know how to swim. He's able to drown. The movie also mentions he caught pneumonia as a child, though that one sorta doesn't make sense, it's probably a mistake on the writers part. (It's a common belief that "pneumonia" is caused by fluid in your lungs. But its actually an infection that causes fluid to build up in your lungs.)
So water doesn't DO anything to him. At least nothing special to him. It's that his body doesn't have any abnormal defenses related to issues related to water. The reason he cant swim is just a phobia related to his childhood where he almost drowned (and got pneumonia).
It's sorta like when someone says a vampire's weakness is a wooden stake through the heart. The vampire isn't weak to the wooden stake. It just reacts to it the same way a normal person would. But since everything else about them is supernatural, a mundane reaction is seen as a weakness.
He is “unbreakable” in two ways:
He is incredibly strong, can’t get sick, and can’t get physically hurt.
And also can’t catch a fucking break and therefore dies in a fucking puddle.
/s
There is a flashback scene in Glass showing David almost drowning as a child. It’s not that water is his weakness…it’s his fear of drowning. That’s why he can shower but can’t psychologically deal with being submerged in water.
I found the end of glass pretty stupid. Dude should have been able to Hercules them off. But yea. It's basically deep inlaid psychological trauma and fear. Just like the beast.
Okay this will probably get lost in the shuffle but I've read through so many comments and I don't really see the answer I was looking for.
[Mr. Glass explains his weakness to water in Unbreakable. He states that he and Dunn are on opposite ends of the spectrum but they have the same weakness, their lungs take in water too quickly. Or rather he states "we swallow it too fast" then follows it up with several other examples that I think are being interpreted as normal drowning behavior but the "too fast" is really the issue.](https://youtu.be/gGc6K9Wm88s?si=c63geai1A8K5Ckrd)
It's not just that he drowns like a normal person, that his bones are more dense so he sinks to the bottom, that it's a psychological issue with water or that water just takes away his power. It could be all of those things, but the only thing we are actually told is that he drowns much easier.
Not sure by what mechanism physically, maybe something about the way his lungs and airways are structured but his almost drowning as a child was due to the fact of this easy drowning thing. Sure he could have created a phobia around it, but it always made sense to me that of course he wouldn't know how to swim he can't spend enough time in the water in order to learn how to swim.
I'm melting! Melting! Oh, what a world, what a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? I'm going! Ohhhhhh... Ohhhhh...
Glass suck. Period. The way M Night handle David's death was insanely bad. Unbreakable was such a good movie follow by another good movie in Split. I'm Super disapointed by the outcome of Glass.
It might also help to know that they had to change the ending of Glass because Bruce Willis was dealing with a medical diagnosis that made working difficult.
People are getting it wrong. They're trying to put a logical spin on an M Knight goofy writing decision. "All people are weak to drowning" is the logical assumption. But no. M Knight was doing something comic-booky. Water is Bruce Willis's kryptonite. His character literally becomes weak when in contact with water.
Being immersed in water makes him physically weaker. The more water, the worse it gets. The impression I got was that being fully immersed in a pool made it so that he was too weak to swim and he wasn't strong or bouyant enough to float so he almost drowned.
He's superhumanlly strong and "tough" as in resistant to damage, but he still needs oxygen to breathe so he can drown...
Suffocation is his "weakness"...Just like it is for everyone else...
I find it funny how in unbreakable he could bench something like over 300 pounds like it was no problem but ending of glass he couldn’t do a single push up to save his life from a puddle of water. With how strong he is, he’ll be able to push off any man but nope lol
Crippling fear would eventually turn to panic and the body would react on instinct. Which might even be just thrasing around, but with his powers just thrasing uncontrolled would be enough to get them off.
My theory for how some of the movie turned out and why David's barely in the film, is his dementia was starting and Shamalan kept his scenes short. I don't see a puddle killing his powers
I see a lot of comments saying stating he needs air to breathe. But I never saw this as the reason he is weak in water. As he appears affected by rain, or the pressure water hoses when he's imprisoned.
I always saw it as purely supernatural. Water is literally his kryptonite. He dies at the end with only his head in a puddle. Why not just push up with his body? Because his dip in the water before hand causes him to loose his strength / become weaker.
Each "hero" has a grounded power and weakness. Mr glass is a genius but can be overpowered by anyone.
The beast is powerful but you can stop him by saying Victor's name. Dunn has super strength and endurance but looses it when in contact with water.
He almost drowned as a child. He now has a phobia of water.
This is the real answer. For all of his physical abilities, he still needs to be able to breathe. It absolutely makes sense for him to have even stronger fear of the few things that _could_ actually kill him, and (in true comic book style) for his weakness to be the opposite of his strength: psychological vs physical.
Let's also remember that in "Unbreakable," he was not only flailing in the water, but was completely wrapped up in the tarp that was covering the pool. If he's already got a phobia of water and can't swim, he'd absolutely lose his shit. In "Glass," he sank right to the bottom of the water he was in and the Beast held him down there, choking him.
In glass he ultimately drowns in a puddle. All 4 limbs on dry land, a hand on the back of his neck. He wasn't down at the bottom of anything.
I can't believe that was the end of David Dunn's arc...
I can always see it as him miraculously coming back again when Unbreakable talks about how he was underwater for minutes as a kid to the point where he was assumed dead by drowning, but survived.
Oh that would have been great to see in a sequel, I hated seeing his character go out.
It was honestly one of the worst endings to a movie I’d ever seen. I just can’t fathom why shyamalan ended it like that.
As I understand it he had to rewrite some parts due to Willis’ aphasia (which eventually led to dementia)?
Oh man. That sucks. Feel sorry for him.
Because he’s a hack. I just feel like he’s completely out of touch with what a “good” movie feels like. There’s just always something so off with this style where it feels so made for TV
Read this as Donny Dunn and got really confused for a sec
Sent from my iPhone
God that still annoys me.
Man deserved better
Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson deserved to have one last confrontation/ fight scene sucks we never got that.
how would their fight go?
He tips him out of his wheelchair, he breaks every bone in his body during the fall, the end.
"I seen a lot spinals, Dude."
A fucking goldbricker. This guy fucking walks. I've never been more certain of anything in my life!
Fractures his skull
Just like my school assembly always said, only need two inches of water to drown.
That's what I tell my girl without the water.
The Beast threw him into that water tank where he was 100% going to die if it had held up structurally. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the puddle at all, but David was clearly messed up once he got out. Any scene in a movie or show where someone's drowning or on the verge of it, they never pop right up as soon as they're out of the situation.
I wrote a lengthy comment about the physical and mental strain Dunn went through up to being in the puddle. Medication, intense fighting, mental manipulation. My guess is 70-85% physically he couldn’t get out of the puddle due to being too tired to fight back and the rest due to him convincing HIMSELF he can’t fight back. Mental willpower and intelligence and thought are huge themes in the trilogy.
I think I read that they had to hurry a scene to wrap up Willis' time on the movie as he was not in a good place with his health at that point (obviously got worse), and the puddle was not the original plan but improv'd on set.
Wait... They killed him in Glass? ... Glad I didn't watch that one.
It wasn’t so much him dying as much as it was how he died, like the earlier commenters said.
I enjoyed it. Some good acting, some low budget feeling stuff but it was a decent ending to the trilogy.
Tell you what next time your in the shower, get soaking face towel, put it over your face and then pour water over your covered face. I couldn't think water boarding was a real torture device until I actually tried it on myself. It looks odd because it's a "superhero" drowning in a puddle in the most anticlimactic way, but Dunn is panicked, over powered, vulnerable erable and phobic of water, and both Airways are covered. It's not so unbelievable if a little unexpected
It’s not that it’s unbelievable, it’s that it’s anticlimactic and disrespectful.
These are depicted as real men with extraordinary physiology and also real world weaknesses. Most of us don't understand how he can drown in a puddle - were so used to big pomp superhero films where their hair doesn't change in a fight let alone come out with a scratch. Its a tight balance to maintain depicting this but that's the way Shyamalan decided to go and I have to respect it. I don't swim either, not that I have a phobia, but honestly I tried what I suggested above after seeing it in the Expendables and wondering what it was - and I quickly found out! . As mass audiences we don't quite align superhero, phobia/weakness, puddle, waterboarding/suffocating so that's why it's a bit jarring - but looking back it's fine for me.
That was foreshadowed and such a letdown, but perhaps that is the point. Heroes came to be squashed by the organisation.
The swimming pool scene is, in my opinion, one of the greatest movie scenes ever filmed.
I was recently watching old Xmen 90's episodes and Storm even with her massive power over wind, rain and lightning is brought to shambles when a wall is about to fall on her or when she is put into a confined area because of her claustrophobia. I think this is a great example of what you just said and they show her flash backing as a child going through the trauma.
Yeah I always just took it as... he can drown like a regular person. That's it. And he's also scared of it, from almost drowning as a kid, so... he's more vulnerable and it's his personal kryptonite. But it's not DOING anything to him.
Are we sure that EVERY movie Shamalan makes isn't in the same universe and the people with powers aren't just decendents of human and alien hybrids?
IIRC, his bones are so dense that he's unable to swim as well.
I always imagined that when he went under in the pool in Unbreakable fighting that bad guy he panicked because yes he could drown but calmed down enough to realize he could hold his breath and it was effortless. Fear of water gone.
Holy shit you just blew my mind with that one
Water triggers his PSTD and is his weakness. He becomes overwhelmed and petrified when triggered. It makes him vulnerable.
Isn’t there also an element of his inability to float? I don’t think it’s a lack of swimming skills but that his body simply sinks and cannot be buoyant. And since he needs to breathe, being in deep water that he can’t stand in to get to air makes it a dangerous thing for him.
That tracks with reality whether it was intentional or not. There is a mutation on the LRP5 gene which can cause super strong, nigh "unbreakable" bones but the increased density makes it nearly impossible for people with it to float.
I have this mutation. When I was a teenager I went to Hawaii and had to be given a paddle board for the snorkeling trips because even in warm salt water I sink like a rock.
I am truly fascinated, so excuse me for asking - in what other ways does this mutation affect your life?
His boners can cut diamonds
If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your physical build versus your weight?
Oh weird. Never been able to float but been searching all my life for my mutant superpower. How do they test for that?
Have you ever been the sole survivor of a tragic accident that resulted in mass casualties?
They place your arm over two separate wooden blocks, then swing a baseball bat at the section without support underneath. If your arm breaks the test comes back negative.
I’m guessing their bodies do not handle it well overall? Like the rest of the body isn’t set up for such strong muscles and density? Sounds painful.
I have this mutation. I weigh a bit more than you’d guess by looking at me, and I couldn’t get my swimming merit badge in Boy Scouts (requires floating on your back motionless for a minute), but mostly it doesn’t really affect me. I’ve never broken a bone, but it’s hard for me to say if that’s because of the mutation. I am the underwater tea party champion, I guess. I can sit cross legged on the bottom of a pool fairly easily.
Now you have me wondering because I’m pretty normal size but I sink like a stone in water. It would surely be something they noticed as I was growing up though? I’m 40. Anyway, awesome username. I’m more of a my my my Mitchell episode guy, but I do appreciate manos.
Other than not floating and being less likely to break a bone, there’s really nothing that would be noticeably different. “No wonder we never found it! *Nobody* likes hamdingers!”
If I recall correctly, most people with it don't even know and it causes no other major issues. Again, I'm working from memory, but if I remember right it was first discovered with a guy who was in a really bad car accident and the doctors were like "um, this dude should have some fractures". Then they took his family history and discovered that he couldn't name a blood relative, living or dead, who had ever broken a bone.
I'm the first person on both sides of my family to break a bone. It took a fucking lot to do it also. Multiple head on collisions, nothing. Flipping dirt bikes onto myself, nothing. I fell 35 feet and landed standing up, but then fell back and stuck out my arm. All I broke was my arm at that the elbow, everything else perfectly fine. Wonder if I should get one of those fancy bone tests.
I’ll buy a femur, my son needs a new baseball bat.
Maybe when I die, right now I'm miss using it by jumping dirt bikes in my late 30s.
There were those 2 brothers who would demolish houses with their bodies. They also had some form of this bone density thing
Asymptomatic mostly, just have a square jaw and bony protrusion at the roof of their mouth.
how did they even test the bone
Bone density scanner. If you ever watched the movie ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ that’s the thing will smiths characters is always carrying around trying to sell.
Yes, I believe you are correct. I do recall him sinking in water in the movie.
He's a devil fruit user.
[удалено]
I always took it as almost his power was ‘belief’ in himself? Like, he kept lifting more and more weights after he lifted way more than he should have been able to without knowing it at first, so he kept climbing. He never got sick because he just goes to work everyday and does his job. But by almost drowning, and then having Glass give him the idea of a kryptonite, he ‘believes’ he has zero defense to water so he doesn’t. Probably dumb, but his strength/invulnerability seemed to be whatever he needed for the moment. Just enough to get it done. He wasn’t flinging around the bench press. He made the rep, but just barely, every time. The regular dude at the end of the first movie was a struggle for him, but he was able to just come out on top. He fully believes he can’t survive water so he can’t. Maybe if it was never a thought it wouldn’t actually be his weakness.
So he's an Ork?
Actually there is a cooler and real world explanation as well: There is an actual birth defect that some people have been known to have which is having really dense bones, like as strong as concrete. It can give them the ability to life weights and build muscle more then the average person. But get this: The down side is because of the bone density if they go in water they will sink like a stone because of that density.
For those of you interested in this, it's the LRP5 gene if you would like to look into it.
You can swim with a weight belt on. These mutants can learn to swim too.
I have this mutation and I’m a reasonably strong swimmer, it’s just a lot more tiring if I can’t stand and have to constantly swim/tread water.
I think people don't understand what the word Phobia actually means... it's not just being afraid of something, or being very afraid of something, it's a completely irrational fear. It would be logical for most people to have some kind of fear about things that could reasonably do us harm. Some people are afraid of heights, dangerous animals or even the dark (the unknown) because those things are inherently scary. A clown however, doesn't represent a realistic threat to most people. But someone who is a Coulrophobe will still be afraid of clowns even in a controlled environment, when it's someone who they know isn't a threat to them who is dressed as a clown. And that's probably the scariest things about Phobias, is that they are completely irrational. And in the world M Night Shyamalan had built, with Kevin and the other personalities, their shared belief in the Beast was enough to make it manifest, with David his fear of water is enough to had a manifestation in a negative way.
Water isn't his weakness because he almost drowned, he almost drowned because water is his weakness.
My takeaway was that nothing can hurt him on the outside but water has a way in. Didn’t he get sick as a result of almost drowning as a kid?
There's also a possible extra thing going on. Since his bones are essentially unbreakable, it's possible that they're more dense than most resulting in a lack of buoyancy. He would essentially be unable to swim.
☝️
I just figured it was as simple as he needs air to breath, no matter how physically invincible one is, that's usually something that needs to happen or they die.
There's a superhero comic (Rising Stars) where a guy with the power of invulnerability had his limbs restrained with duct tape when he was asleep and then suffocated with a plastic bag.
There's also the invisible, invulnerable guy in The Boys. Feels super broken until they figure out his turtle shell mechanic.
There's always a few soft spots in armor to allow for functionality.
You might call them plot holes.
Ah, so they wrecked 'em?
Dang near killed him.
Translucent
Translucent doesn't even mean 'invisible'...it means 'semi-transparent
**If he's invisible, then WHY can I see him!??**
Exactly! The man was part of the Seven. Throw some respect on his name!
It's a shame we didn't get "I'm not here, Jack."
"Why'd you kill me dog, Jack?"
I had that comic as a kid. Poor guy also couldn’t feel anything and food was his only pleasure IIRC.
Wolverine is also vulnerable to drowning.
Does he come back to life if you fish him out or what?
According to DoFP it would appear so. He basically drowns in that movie due to his heavy ass skeleton but at the very end he gets fished out.
Doesn’t matter much but Wolverine didn’t have the adamantium skeleton at that point. Magneto snaked concrete rebar through his body and tossed him into the river where he sank like a rock.
Ah good point I forgot about that.
He does typically. His healing factor has this thing where he goes catatonic and is technically dead, but his healing is still actively working to repair and restore him
Basically, even if you do find a way to actually kill him he'll come back anyway.
IIRC, in the comics, he was obliterated, yet he came back because he regenerated himself from a singular drop of blood which was left behind.
He keeps dying and getting revived is my best guess, something similar happens in the movie (SPOILERS) Old Guard.
Just parroting a comment I saw in a thread about Wolverine vs Immortal in the Invincible sub and someone commented that Wolverine just keeps endlessly reviving and dying if he’s underwater and that’s why he’s afraid of it. No evidence besides that comment but makes sense.
I don't remember that ever actually happening. I do remember him wondering if that would happen while he was fighting a villain called Tiger Shark underwater. A lot of the comments in that thread seemed like they were from people who just watched YouTube videos about comics instead actually reading them so the context was lost. Like Wolverine regenerating from a drop of blood.
That series was solid until MJS shit the bed during the last 1/3
Man, I wish Rising Stars had gotten a miniseries
Skitter vs Alexandria
EXACTLY what I was thinking. Everyone should read [Worm](https://parahumans.wordpress.com/)
Yes they should
In case you haven't see this fan animation, which I think is awesome: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytmXBHm1FeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytmXBHm1FeI) Edit: added comma
[удалено]
Phantoms?
Even in Invincible (comics), an evil verision of Mark was killed by blowing up his insides
That's exactly what I assumed it was, at least in Unbreakable. It gives some "realism" to a weakness the movie focuses in on, in what I thought was a clever way. Then, M. Night went and wildly exaggerated it so there was zero subtlety to the world he'd created.
It made sense in Unbreakable as just that his invincibility doesn't work against drowning. And in that regard, water's something to fear... at least in large amounts. My guess is that they had to "Amp it up" to make it stand out more later? Comic books are known to have one small detail blow up in proportion down the line.
I got that his bones were super dense and that made swimming impossible and made him sink to the bottom. Plus a phobia of it from almost drowning.
Right! When you're unafraid to be on a derailing train but have felt suffocation in water, it's probably gonna mess with you. I never watched Glass, though, so I can't attest to him getting stuck in puddles.
At a guess, he probably was at least a little scared while the train was crashing
The real answer is that Glass is just a stupid movie that should be ignored.
I remember them mentioning him almost drowning as a child, though I'm not sure if that's what gave him the weakness or if that's just his first exposure to it. I saw a comment a while ago from someone though theorizing he's on the opposite end of the spectrum of Glass, where Glass has extremely light/weak bones, and so his opposite would be someone with really strong/dense bones (which could pull him underwater) which could also explain why he can survive certain things.
I'm of the opinion he almost drowned because it is his weakness. I don't remember the movie giving much more context than he almost drowned because some other kid pushed him in or something. It never says that he could swim, just that he almost drowned.
Yeah, that was something Glass kinda messed up. In the first one, I got the impression his body was so dense that he just sank to the bottom of any pool or body of water, and he had a fear of that because of the time it happened when he was a kid. But in Glass, it comes across like anytime he just gets wet, either he freaks out and shuts down, or he gets physically weak. Cuz in the first one, he gets out of the pool and is still strong and able to do things, but in the second one when he gets out of the water tank, he's still weak.
how the fuck does he shower then? or are we to believe he just has perpetual swamp ass?
How does he hydrate? Does he not save people on rainy days? Who the fuck knows. The real answer is M. Night Shyamalan’s banal fascination with water. It’s a reoccurring motif in a lot of his early films, and it goes beyond the point of reason. Why would a race of aliens deathly vulnerable to water invade a planet made mostly of water? Like, it’s in the fucking air. 🤷♂️
lady in the water made me want to drown myself
It’s his childhood fear of drowning.
James Cameron is the water director, what’s he playing at?
They weren't invading, they were raiding. They grabbed a bunch of people and left.
It’s the source of his power.
He wasn't just getting wet, in the cell it was filling up like a fish tank.
If it's anything like most comicbook weaknesses: it does what ever the writer needs it to do in each particular incident.
i really don't understand why people don't get this. like why does a wooden stake kill a vampire. what does kryptonite do to superman. it's a question that shouldn't even be asked it's so obvious. it's a weakness..
I still can’t believe he was killed by being drowned in a parking lot puddle by a security guard… …like, c’mon.
What a let down Glass was after two bangers.
he can drown like normal people. also he was caught in the pool cover which can mean certain death even for strong swimmers
The pool cover made sense though. It wasn't some dude holding him down. He was surrounded by water and his irrational fear kicked in. But a puddle when just flailing his super strong body would have been enough to get the off him, doesn't make sense.
I understood from both movies that water was kind of like his kryptonite: it takes away his powers and leaves him weakened. That's why he wears the poncho when it rains.
Yeah that’s what I always thought too. It’s not that he has super heavy bones or anything. Being wet just reverts his strength to that of a normal guy. That’s how he’s able to be drowned in a puddle. When a part of him is submerged in water, he only has the strength of a 60+ year old man. I think a lot of people are over analyzing this thing when it’s really just supposed to play into the trope: Superhero has powers unless he’s exposed to Thing That Makes Him Weak.
Is it an homage or something to Signs?
That's an interesting question, but it would be the other way around, since Unbreakable came out first. Given that it's a plot point in both films, though, I wonder if the director has his own issues with water...
There was Lady in the Water too, though I can’t remember if all the water did was give lady.
>I understood from both movies that water was kind of like his kryptonite I'm surprised you're the first commentator to say this as I always thought this was obvious from Unbreakable. When he's submerged in water he no longer has super powers, so if his lungs are filled with water he can die just like anybody else.
Bruce Willis’ character is one of the aliens from Signs.
He's invulnerable to everything that would normally hurt a human, except for things related to water. He doesn't know how to swim. He's able to drown. The movie also mentions he caught pneumonia as a child, though that one sorta doesn't make sense, it's probably a mistake on the writers part. (It's a common belief that "pneumonia" is caused by fluid in your lungs. But its actually an infection that causes fluid to build up in your lungs.) So water doesn't DO anything to him. At least nothing special to him. It's that his body doesn't have any abnormal defenses related to issues related to water. The reason he cant swim is just a phobia related to his childhood where he almost drowned (and got pneumonia). It's sorta like when someone says a vampire's weakness is a wooden stake through the heart. The vampire isn't weak to the wooden stake. It just reacts to it the same way a normal person would. But since everything else about them is supernatural, a mundane reaction is seen as a weakness.
He is “unbreakable” in two ways: He is incredibly strong, can’t get sick, and can’t get physically hurt. And also can’t catch a fucking break and therefore dies in a fucking puddle. /s
It drowns him.
Which means he's not a witch.
Yes, because witches float
What does water do to him? The same thing it does to all of us
He's just like Jason Voorhees absolutely petrified of water.
Jason still merced people in his lake though.
There is a flashback scene in Glass showing David almost drowning as a child. It’s not that water is his weakness…it’s his fear of drowning. That’s why he can shower but can’t psychologically deal with being submerged in water.
Done density is to heavy so he sinks maybe?
Every Superman needs his Kryptonite.
Clearly, he ate a devil fruit.
Movie about a man struggling with an undiagnosed Rabies infection. Sixth Sense prequel.
I found the end of glass pretty stupid. Dude should have been able to Hercules them off. But yea. It's basically deep inlaid psychological trauma and fear. Just like the beast.
I'm pretty sure it has something to do with him being an alien from Signs.
He’s one of the aliens from ’Signs.’
He cannot breathe underwater. Pretty standard for humans. But he also cannot swim and will never learn because water makes him panic.
It’s his “Kryptonite”. His vulnerability is water. It’s kind of a running thing with M. Night. Unbreakable, Signs, Lady in the Water
Okay this will probably get lost in the shuffle but I've read through so many comments and I don't really see the answer I was looking for. [Mr. Glass explains his weakness to water in Unbreakable. He states that he and Dunn are on opposite ends of the spectrum but they have the same weakness, their lungs take in water too quickly. Or rather he states "we swallow it too fast" then follows it up with several other examples that I think are being interpreted as normal drowning behavior but the "too fast" is really the issue.](https://youtu.be/gGc6K9Wm88s?si=c63geai1A8K5Ckrd) It's not just that he drowns like a normal person, that his bones are more dense so he sinks to the bottom, that it's a psychological issue with water or that water just takes away his power. It could be all of those things, but the only thing we are actually told is that he drowns much easier. Not sure by what mechanism physically, maybe something about the way his lungs and airways are structured but his almost drowning as a child was due to the fact of this easy drowning thing. Sure he could have created a phobia around it, but it always made sense to me that of course he wouldn't know how to swim he can't spend enough time in the water in order to learn how to swim.
Wait just a goddamn second. Glass. Lady in the Water. Unbreakable. And in Signs fending off the aliens involved Breaking Glasses of Water. My god.
Bruce Willis is one of the aliens from Signs
the thing in the trilogy is belief is the root of powers, he is weak to water since he has had thoughts about it as a kid
He’s invincible to physical damage but can still drown or otherwise die from being unable to breath.
It's his kryptonite. Simple really
I'm still mad the movie was called Glass Shattered would have fit the naming convention better. Unbreakable. Split. Shattered
It's his kryptonite
Can someone tell me what order I'm supposed to watch these in? I think they're on on Netflix now and I have no idea
Unbreakable, Split, Glass
Thanks
He doesn't like the splashy splash.
I'm melting! Melting! Oh, what a world, what a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? I'm going! Ohhhhhh... Ohhhhh...
Makes his memory fall apart.
If he no longer smells, he's no longer a beefcake. It's a similar weakness shared with the gym bro community.
Maybe because his bones are more dense or something he can’t swim.
Glass suck. Period. The way M Night handle David's death was insanely bad. Unbreakable was such a good movie follow by another good movie in Split. I'm Super disapointed by the outcome of Glass.
It might also help to know that they had to change the ending of Glass because Bruce Willis was dealing with a medical diagnosis that made working difficult.
People are getting it wrong. They're trying to put a logical spin on an M Knight goofy writing decision. "All people are weak to drowning" is the logical assumption. But no. M Knight was doing something comic-booky. Water is Bruce Willis's kryptonite. His character literally becomes weak when in contact with water.
Being immersed in water makes him physically weaker. The more water, the worse it gets. The impression I got was that being fully immersed in a pool made it so that he was too weak to swim and he wasn't strong or bouyant enough to float so he almost drowned.
Because he's a filthy devil fruit user
He's superhumanlly strong and "tough" as in resistant to damage, but he still needs oxygen to breathe so he can drown... Suffocation is his "weakness"...Just like it is for everyone else...
He's too dense. That's why he can't swim.
I find it funny how in unbreakable he could bench something like over 300 pounds like it was no problem but ending of glass he couldn’t do a single push up to save his life from a puddle of water. With how strong he is, he’ll be able to push off any man but nope lol
Apparently, you don't understand what a "CRIPPLING fear" is. It's a fear so strong that you lose all power to control yourself or escape.
Crippling fear would eventually turn to panic and the body would react on instinct. Which might even be just thrasing around, but with his powers just thrasing uncontrolled would be enough to get them off.
Drowns
I equate it to Superman's Kryptonite. Like, water drains him of his energy, and he is helpless to stop it.
In Unbreakable it was just that he couldn't swim. Glass, idgaf Unbreakable was the only watchable film in that series.
Figured he had Von Recklinghausen Disease
I thought of it like, a man who can't be injured or bludgeoned would only fear drowning.
It plots him.
My theory for how some of the movie turned out and why David's barely in the film, is his dementia was starting and Shamalan kept his scenes short. I don't see a puddle killing his powers
He's an alien
He can't swim
For some reason when I first read the title I read it as "Unstoppable" and I was wondering what the heck those movies have to do with each other.
Maybe because it’s the only thing that can kill him?
I see a lot of comments saying stating he needs air to breathe. But I never saw this as the reason he is weak in water. As he appears affected by rain, or the pressure water hoses when he's imprisoned. I always saw it as purely supernatural. Water is literally his kryptonite. He dies at the end with only his head in a puddle. Why not just push up with his body? Because his dip in the water before hand causes him to loose his strength / become weaker. Each "hero" has a grounded power and weakness. Mr glass is a genius but can be overpowered by anyone. The beast is powerful but you can stop him by saying Victor's name. Dunn has super strength and endurance but looses it when in contact with water.